Little White Lines
by speedermeen
Summary: In which El discovers the Little White Lines on Mike’s wrist. {Trigger Warning} {Mileven} {Oneshot}


**_Ok so I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but in Season 2, Mike never has short sleeves. I mean, I know it's cold and everything but he never takes off his sweatshirt or jacket? My mind- forever altered by my best friends being suicidal- immediately went to this._**

 ** _SO BIG FAT TRIGGER WARNING. STAY SAFE FRENS. *loooovvvveeee*_**

 ** _I don't own Stranger Things._**

On nights like these, El could almost forget about her past. When she cradled Mike's head in her lap, she could almost forget what happened to Mama. When she watched him lazily swing his feet off the arm of the couch, she could almost forget about what happened with Kali. When his beautiful voice sang to her, she could almost forget the silence of the Room. When she stroked his tar-black hair, she could almost forget what Papa did to her. When she tried to count the millions of freckles littering his nose and cheeks, she could almost forget being in the Upside Down. When she stared unto his eyes, she could almost forget the 353 days of no Mike.

Mike stopped singing in the middle of a song- Every Breath You Take by the Police- and shifted a bit. Pulling a coin from his pocket, he held it up to her face. "Penny for your thoughts? You look upset."

"Have you been carrying that around just to say that?" She asked with a laugh and snatched it. Before answering, she rubbed it between two fingers. "I just... you make everything better. I can almost forget about everything that happened."

Mike fidgeted with his sleeve, then answered her. "You do, too, El. More than you know."

She smiled at him. "Can you keep singing Mikey? I... I dunno. I love it."

Mike blushed and picked up where he left off.

"Since you've gone I been lost without a trace," he sang. His voice was beautiful. "I dream at night I can only see your face." He flipped over, off the couch- ungracfully- and took her hand, swinging her around. "I look around but it's you I can't replace. I feel so cold and I long for your embrace. I keep crying baby, baby, please."

They danced for awhile, Mike singing and dipping El.

Everything was perfect.

El woke up to snoring. Familiar snoring. Soft and subtle, Mike's snore was more adorable than annoying.

For a few moments, El sat how she was, just cuddled up against Mike, listening to his peaceful snoring.

Then she remembered that if Hopper caught them, El would be in so much trouble.

Then she wondered why they weren't in trouble right now.

The two of them were laying on the couch, Mike on the inside. His arm was under her neck, hanging off the edge. His other arm was under her arm, clutching her torso. On his watch, which was on the arm hanging off the couch, it read 9-4-2. Hopper would be home at 10-0-0 and he would kill her at 10-0-1, if he saw this.

El smiled to herself. She still had time. She closed her eyes.

The next time she opened them, she pushed down on the button that would illuminate the screen. 9-5-3.

Now it was time to get up.

But, with the watch light illuminating everything around it, El was curious. A tiny white line decorated Mike's wrist. She gently rolled up Mike's sleeve.

All down his inner arm, were little white lines. They were in one neat column reached all the way down to where her 011 tattoo was. El wondered what they were.

She traced her finger from the top to the bottom, slowly. The texture felt like scars, but El wondered how neat ones like those ended up on Mike's wrist.

She wondered if they were on the other one. Careful not to wake him up, she lifted Mike's arm and turned it over. She had to lean up to look at the inner skin without breaking his arm, so she did so. With one hand holding his elbow and the other on the fabric, El rolled up his sleeve. It was too dark to see.

A flick of her head later, the lights in the cabin were blinding her.

Next to her, Mike groaned. He used the arm El was currently examining to cover his eyes. Hastily, she turned a few of the lights off. He uncovered his eyes.

"El?" He asked sleepily. "What're you doin'?"

She didn't answer. Suddenly, she felt guilty for snooping. Hopper had told her not to do that.

"Dad's coming home soon." Mike's eyes widened in panic, knowing full well Hopper would probably commit murder if he saw them sleeping innocently on the couch. "What's on your wrist?" She asked, pointing to his arm. The sleeve was rolled up to his elbow.

This time, Mike sat up, yanking his sleeve down hastily.

"It's nothing!" He practically yelled.

El was about to hit him with her catchphrase, when another voice asked "What's nothing?"

Both teenagers turned to see Hopper in the doorway.

El was thankful that her and Mike were out of their previous position. Mike had retreated back to the very corner of the couch and she was sitting crisscrossed in the middle.

"Nothing!" Mike yipped.

"Um-" Hopper seemed to know that he wasn't getting anywhere with that. "Anyway, kid, time to go home. Your mom's outside."

"I told her that I could bike home," Mike's voice came muffled from under the sweatshirt he was pulling on.

His head popped out through the top, hair sticking up everywhere with static. He kissed the top of El's head with a mumbled goodbye, grabbed his backpack, and ran outside.

Hopper watched Mike hop into the car before shutting he door.

"Did you have fun?" He asked her, knowing the answer, but loving the way she would say "YES!" and tell him every detail.

But tonight, he got a different answer.

"What are the little white lines?" El asked him solemnly.

Hopper, who had taken his hat off and was moseying into the kitchen for a snack, turned around. "What do you mean?"

"The scars?" El offered. "What do they mean?"

"What do _you_ mean, kid?" He asked again.

El huffed impatiently. "The scars on Mike's wrist! Why are they there?"

Hopper dropped the mug he was holding. El caught it for him and had it hover just in his reach. He grabbed it again.

El, assuming he didn't understand, walked over to him and rolled up her sleeve. She held out her wrist and traced her finger horizontally across, all the way down to her tattoo. "They looked like that. They were neat and he was embarrassed." Suddenly, her eyes grew wide. "Is it a boy thing? Is it a boy period-"

"NO!" Hopper exclaimed. "Why don't you... why don't you go to bed. I'll explain in the morning. I'm too tired right now." _And I don't want to tell you that your boyfriend tried to kill himself- multiple times._

El nodded and hopped off to bed, leaving Hopper alone in the kitchen.

Suddenly, he felt something hit him in the stomach. He didn't look down, though, knowing nothing was there. Knowing it was a memory.

The boy had screamed at him, had cried. Hopper was expecting anger, but that had suprised him.

But now, knowing that these little white lines existed, each punch hurt a whole lot more.

Hopper woke up to El's face, looming over him. "Dad! Wake up!"

He reminisced about how he loved it when she called him dad, something she had started doing a few months ago. He smiled a bit bigger every time.

"What, kid?" He asked sleepily, a smile creeping onto his face.

"You promised you'd tell!"

Hopper's grin fell. El's curiosity never seemed to cease. She was like a sponge, always wanting more information about this new world. Hopper had tried to keep all this new information light and happy, but what El was so desperate to know would soon break her heart.

"After breakfast?" He pleaded.

El's big eyes grew bigger and her lip came out, although Hopper definitely saw the corners of her mouth twitch up.

"Fine. But brush your teeth first, you reek!" He gagged and pretended to throw up over the other side of the couch.

El giggled and obeyed, returning 30 seconds later.

"That wasn't nearly long eno-"

"DAD!" She moaned.

He held up his hands and laughed. "Alright, alright, sit down."

El looked at him expectantly, her butt hanging off the edge of the couch. Hopper wanted that pure look of innocence to stay forever. Even what she'd been through couldn't dim her child's aura, an air of curiosity and love.

"The little white lines you saw _were_ scars."

Cocking her head in confusion, El motioned with her arms for him to go on. He had paused and taken a deep breath.

"There's this... vein in your wrist." Hopper told her, reaching for her arm and tracing hid finger down the blue line. "If you cut it, it bleeds a lot. It can kill you sometimes." El made a face, even more confused on why this was relevant to Mike. "Sometimes, people get really unhappy here." Hopper struggled on this part. He opened and closed his mouth before settling on a situation she could understand. "Sometimes, they think that the person they love is dead or that they can't ever see them again. They have no hope of ever seeing them again. It makes them really sad. So they try to cut the vein, hoping that it will kill them." El gasped, her eyes wide and filling with tears.

"You mean... Mike?" Her voice cracked on the last word and tears were suddenly pouring down her cheeks.

Hopper brought her close to him, squeezing her tight. "He loves you El. He would never do it now. He loves you too much."

Hopper hoped he wasn't lying.

Mike fingered the edge of the fabric of his sweatshirt, pulling it down just enough to reveal the first scar. It was the faintest, the first one he ever did. He didn't exactly forget how the others happened, but this one was the most memorable.

It was the night of the Snowball in '83. The other boys had gone and tried their best to convince him to come- they hadn't known about what he'd asked El. He refused, many times. Nancy was a chaperone and his parents had taken Holly out to some birthday party, without knowing he wouldn't be attending with his friends. (His mom pretty much had to force his dad out of the house.) He was alone.

 _Mike sat alone in El's fort, sobbing huge, gross sobs. He didn't even realize he had fallen, laying down across the little shelter. His cried into the pillow, kind of wishing he would suffocate and it would all be over. That gave him an idea. Still weeping, he weakly crept up the steps and over to the kitchen. He reached into the silverware drawer, extracting one of the random steak knives carelessly thrown in._

 _Back at the fort, Mike held the cool metal to his wrist, eyes now dry, locating the big blue line he'd heard was the one that would kill you. His super com crackled next to him, static reminding him of what he'd lost. Why he needed to do this._

 _"El..." He held the knife in his right hand and picked up the super com with his let, pushing the button with the same time. "El, I don't know if you can hear me... hell you're probably not even alive, but I just wanted to say..." He closed his eyes and whispered: "Just give me a sign. Say something, do_ anything _and... I won't do it. Give me a sign and I won't do it."_

 _He let go of the button, eyes still shut tightly and... static. He waited._

 _Nothing._

 _He took a deep breath and pressed the knife to the blue vein. He dragged it across._

 _He gasped. The moment the skin broke, a shiver shot through his body, but at the same time, his face and neck began to heat up. And it_ hurt.

 _But losing El hurt more._

 _He dropped the knife on the blanket and cried again, bawling, clutching his arm to his chest._

 _He passed out from exhaustion, but woke up before his family came home. He had missed the vein, only cutting open the skin above it._

"MIKE!" Someone practically yelled in his ear.

Mike's head shot up and found Will next to him, clutching his books to his chest.

"Mike are you okay?" Will asked. "Class is over. You were totally zoned out. Is that what my episodes were like?" he muttered the last part to himself.

"I'm fine," he lied, gathering up his notebook and textbook, shoving his pencil into his back pocket.

He wasn't going to tell Will about... _that_. He didn't want to worry him. The kid had been through enough already. This was something Mike would have to keep to himself. No one would ever know... except El.

His thoughts spiraled back to the previous night as he followed Will to their next class. She hadn't known what they were. But she was sure to ask Hopper, who definitely would know. What would Hopper do? Would he tell her? Was he going to try to talk to Mike about it?

"Mike!" Will called.

Mike turned and saw that he'd passed the classroom by a few feet. He mumbled an apology to the flow of traffic he was interrupting- he was one hundred percent sure that freshmen hallways were the worst- and slipped into the room behind Will.

"I'm going to see Mike," El told Hopper as soon as he walked into the cabin. She already had her coat and shoes on.

He sighed but didn't argue. In the year since El had closed the Gate and made an appearance to all her friends, Hopper had been very strict about letting her go out. There had been a few exceptions. Birthdays (specifically her's and Mike's) and Christmas were the most notable ones. But right now, Hopper was sure she would go out that door whether he agreed or not. And he really didn't want her our by herself. And he'd seen this coming and had a day to contemplate letting her go (with coffee of course).

"Let me grab my keys."

 _She told him._

That was Mike's first thought when he saw Hopper's car pull into his driveway. He'd been distracted all afternoon and had done nothing more than stare at his textbook for a few hours, twirling his pencil through his hair.

Mike was determined to ignore the chief, have his mom get the door and make him go away becuase Mike had too much homework to talk. Then a thought popped into his head.

If Hopper was here, that means that El told him (El told him!). And if Mrs. Wheeler opened the door, then Hopper might tell her-

Before he could even finish the thought, Mike was flying down the steps.

El knew what she was going to say when Mike opened the door. Well she thought she did at least. Everything she wanted to say flew out of her mind when Mike flung the door open.

No one said anything. Mike's eyes flickered from Hopper to El and widened in suprise, jumping back to Hopper in disbelief, before finally fixing on El.

She made an odd, strangled noise, before flinging herself onto Mike, almost knocking him over. Suddenly her cheeks were wet and her shoulder were shaking and all she could say was "I love you, Mike. I love you, Mike. I love you, Mike."

It could've just been her own, but she could've sworn she heard Mike sobbing in her ear.

 ** _So um, I'm sorry Mikey. I tried not to make this sad. I'm working on a follow up to this oneshot with Max. And an AU, where he actually succeeds in killing himself, so if you wanna follow me (not the story) so you don't miss those, you can. Review, tell me what you think. And... I feel like I had more to say... OH! Every Breath You Take, have you ever noticed that the one part I had Mike sing is LITERALLY THEM. Okay, I'm good now. Look our for new stories and review please!_**


End file.
